There was more solid ground than mere confidence in his destiny behind
Shelby's bold front. The earliest mail delivery had shed a glimmer of
hope in the shape of a midnight note from Mrs. Hilliard. He did not
require her reminder that the voting strength of Little Poland was no
longer to be counted in his column--he had thought and fought that out in
the small hours; but he did need and pounced upon the statement that
Little Poland's master would be out of town the greater part of election
day. The scrawl ended with an appointment for a clandestine meeting at
eleven o'clock, toward which he now bent his steps on leaving Ruth.
Mrs. Hilliard had named a cemetery on the immediate outskirts as the
rendezvous--a choice on whose evil omen Shelby wasted no thought. In the
heyday of their flirtation he and Mrs. Hilliard had made frequent use of
it as a Platonic trysting-place, and he climbed the silent paths toward
the summit of the mount, as it was styled in that level land, with no
sentiment save approval of her wisdom in seizing upon the one spot in all
New Babylon whose privacy was certain.
Mrs. Hilliard, shivering in the lee of a pretentious granite shaft which
bore her family name, was more susceptible.
"Bleak--desolate," she chattered. "What an end for our Fools' Paradise.
But where else could we escape their prying eyes?"
"You've heard what they're saying?"
She nodded listlessly.
"Who has not heard?" As they huddled in the shelter of the monument she
brooded over the plain below wherein the canal, livid, yet unfrozen
still, half girdled the town in a serpentine fold. Each chimney curled a
light spiral into the nipping air. "Under every one a wagging tongue,"
she said. "It's known to every soul except one."
"You mean he's still in the dark?"
"He can't know yet. He took an early train to Centreport. It's some
quarry business that could not wait. I remembered it last
night--after--after you had gone; so I wrote. It was past two o'clock
before I dared steal out to post the letter."
Shelby shrugged into the collar of his ulster.
"I don't deserve all this," he muttered.
"Don't say that. You've done things, too. You've stood for--things;
something to pin faith to. You are--"
"I'm your good friend--remember that."
"Friend!"
He drew her farther into shelter, and tucked her furs about her throat.
"Now concentrate your mind," he enjoined, "and tell me exactly the lay of
the land. Did he communicate with the foreman at the quarry before he
left?"
"Yes. I overheard him telephone Kiska before breakfast. He said he'd
return at half-past three. There's no train to-day from Centreport till
then."
"And there is no other till the polls close. He said nothing, then,
about voting the hands before afternoon?"
"They're at work this morning."
"On election day! You're sure?"
"They're working half a day on full day's pay. Joe's hurrying some
contract through. I don't understand it very well, but the stone has to
be shipped before the canal freezes on account of--something--freight
rates--"
"Never mind that. What did he say to Kiska about voting--that the men
should be ready at such and such a time?"
"No, no; I know about that. Before anything happened it was arranged
that the men should vote about four o'clock. He merely told Kiska he'd
return at three-thirty."
"Good, good!" exclaimed Shelby, making ready for action. "Every
naturalized mother's son in Little Poland shall vote for me before the
train can even whistle. Now, you go home, Cora," he charged, "and drink
something hot against this graveyard chill. Keep a stiff upper
lip--that's my creed. Everything blows over in time. The scandal is so
tall that it will topple of itself. Nobody will believe it after
election."
"But Joe? Think of him when he learns what they're saying, and that
you've outwitted him."
Shelby grinned.
"That's the situation's one humorous phase," said he. "The two things
will neutralize one another's effect,--like Kilkenny cats, you know.
He'll not dare raise a row about the votes for fear of lending color to
the scandal."
But Mrs. Hilliard, whose sense of humor was sluggish this morning,
rejoined bitterly;--
"The row will fall to me."
"He needn't know your part in this--the matter of the votes; and as for
the other thing--well, after all, he is your husband, hard and fast, and
you'd best try and patch things up."
She straightened, flashing him a stony look, and he braced himself for a
hurricane; but to his equal discomfiture she went down beside the shaft
in a passionate fit of weeping.
"I should be under here," she sobbed; "I should be under here."
Shelby, tingling to be gone, shifted from foot to foot, and offered some
blundering solace which she put away.
"You've ceased to care," she accused.
He protested, adding indiscreetly that she had done too much for him for
that.
"You've filled the place he should have filled!"
Shelby was silent, goaded to torture by the lapse of precious minutes.
"There's only blackness ahead!"
"Don't take the dark view," entreated Shelby, groping desperately for a
bright one. "The man can't live always--so much older than you--and
then--your life's your own--"
The bowed figure shuddered.
"It's a dreadful thing to do--but I've thought that, too. I can't help
it. You--you are the real one--the real one--" She waited.
"Yes." It was screwed from him.
"The real one--and if--I know I don't need your promise--but if--"
"Yes, yes; of course if--"
Neither of them would name the contingency. Shelby contrived a
leave-taking, and bounded down the terraced slopes. It was quite noon
when he reached the Tuscarora House, but without a thought of food, he
got his horse and buggy from the livery, speeding the harnessing with his
own hands, and whipped away for Little Poland.
On reaching the Hilliard quarries he confronted unexpected obstacles.
The men had quitted work and scattered to their homes, and Kiska was to
be discovered neither in nor around the little office. However, the
Polish lad in temporary charge, Kiska's own son, was not slow to
recognize the original of the campaign lithograph which in his home
enjoyed honors second only to a highly-colored Madonna, and went flying
in search of his father. Shelby took instant advantage of his absence to
telephone Bowers, whom he luckily located at his midday meal. He learned
that the handbills had been sown broadcast with encouraging effect, and
that the general opinion of the voting public leaned toward unbelief.
Shelby told his whereabouts, and requested the prompt services of Jasper
Hinchey and three or four kindred spirits, ringing off after certain
mysterious, though concise, directions regarding a concert hall in the
Flats, which he meant shortly to utilize.
He had barely hung up the receiver when a telegraph messenger from town
brought a despatch for Kiska. Shelby's breath shortened at sight of the
yellow envelope, but he mustered a specious unconcern, telling the boy
that the foreman's return, though certain, was not within immediate
prospect, and volunteered to receipt for the message himself--an offer
readily embraced by the lad, who, without a glance, pocketed the book in
which Shelby scrawled Kiska's own name, and fared away with a head aflame
from the bonfires of the coming night.
The envelope was loosely gummed, and gave under gentle persuasion.
Shelby threw a glance from either window of the narrow room, and drew the
paper from its cover. It was from Hilliard at Centreport, and announced
that he had missed his train. The reader's delight was qualified by the
succeeding statement that he should come by the canal, and that the men
were to be in readiness.
"He's hired a launch or tug," commented Shelby. "Horses aren't to be had
to-day for rubies or fine gold."
He replaced the message, sealed the envelope, and flung it on the table,
catching sight of Kiska, as he did so, striding along the canal bank
toward the office. The big Pole burst into the room a moment later, his
simple face aglow at the meeting, and sputtered broken excuses for
keeping his preserver waiting. Shelby shook both his grimy hands, and
smilingly supposed that Kiska had made up his mind how he should vote.
Kiska's English was uncertain, but there was no misreading his
gesticulation.
"And Little Poland?" insinuated the candidate, blandly.
"Leetle Poland ees ein beeg vote," Kiska eagerly assured him; "joost ein
beeg vote for Meester Shelby. Whan you save me, Meester Heelyard he say
eef anybody no want to vote for you, he can joost valk aus de qvarry."
"Very kind of him," said Shelby. "Now, since you all know your own
minds, I'd take it as a favor if you would get to the polls at the
earliest possible moment. The voting promises to be heavy toward the
close, and I don't care to have my friends inconvenienced. By the way,
Kiska," he broke off carelessly "there's a telegram for you over there.
It came not ten minutes ago."
By dint of facial contortion Kiska puzzled out the meaning, and handed
the message to Shelby, who gave it grave perusal.
"Ah," said he. "You see he's anxious about it, too. If there was any
way of reaching him by wire, we could relieve his mind; as there is not,
the wise course is to go ahead. His coming by boat is uncertain. It
will be a nice little surprise for him to find that you've got the votes
all in."
So it seemed to Kiska, and the business of rallying Little Poland to its
civic duties was instantly got under way. Here, too, were obstacles.
Having been told to present themselves at a later hour, the villagers
were in all states of unreadiness; but by impressing this helper and
that, doing the work of three men himself, and with the reenforcement of
Jap Hinchey and his co-workers, whom Bowers hurried to the scene in a
hired carriage whose bravery of varnish made mock of their rags, Kiska at
last collected his compatriots. The rented vehicle was urged back at a
gallop to Bowers and continued public usefulness, and the whole body of
enfranchised Poles, under the escort of Kiska, Jap Hinchey, and his
fellows, trudged off in groups of five and ten to New Babylon.
Little Poland lay within the same voting precinct as the Flats, and when
Shelby had assured himself that the straggling column was finally in
motion, he rode on in advance toward this quarter and the concert hall to
which he had made mysterious reference in his telephoned directions to
the Hon. Seneca Bowers. From the elevation of a canal bridge he searched
the waterway for a sign of Hilliard's coming, pondering anxiously whether
a pillar of smoke at the horizon's rim were his herald; but a glance at
his watch reassured. The train which Hilliard had missed was barely due,
and to cover the distance by boat meant an additional hour at least.
Employing a street urchin to lead his horse to its stable, he struck out
on foot for the Flats.
At the tawdry concert hall everything was as it should be, and in the
brief interval before the arrival of the Poles he received inspiriting
news from one of his workers. Money was flowing, buckets of it, but
beyond doubt they held the longer purse. Their policy of offering high
prices to the floaters at the outset had drained the disciples of the
late Chuck O'Rourke before twelve o'clock, and patriots were now to be
had at bargain rates. Some few conscientious souls who could not see
their way to a Shelby vote had been induced to stay away from the polls
altogether; and at least a dozen irreconcilables had been laid by the
heels with bad whiskey before they had done protesting that not all the
powers of darkness could deter them from casting an unsullied ballot
under the emblem of the Square.
The Poles came hulking in, Shelby himself keeping tally at the door, and
when Kiska had urged the last loiterer over the threshold, the key was
turned. Drinks were sparingly circulated, and Kiska harangued the crowd
briefly in Polish, hammering in Shelby's instructions for their conduct
in the voting booths, and impressing them with the fact that good cheer
in plenty would await them here on their return. Under the efficient
supervision of Jasper Hinchey and his lieutenants they were now guided to
the polling-place in squads of three or four, returning presently to
unlimited refreshment and a surreptitious two-dollar bill--shining
examples and incentives to such as had not yet voted to speed their going.
Yet with all their willingness, the affair consumed time, and twice
Shelby went into the dusty wings of the stage to a window overlooking the
canal, and strained to detect the panting of a laboring launch or tug.
But the last quarryman voted, the polls closed, darkness fell, and Joe
Hilliard was not yet come.